By Janet Podolak, The News-HeraldAn unlikely alliance between a Cleveland chef and a Newbury Township company could revolutionize the value of water as an ingredient in kitchens.

Crop chef Steve Schimoler claims he’s become obsessed with water since he realized tap water’s impurities become concentrated when sauces are reduced by simmering them. “Look at rice, for example,” he said. “The water is absorbed by the rice when it’s cooked, but it’s still there.”Three years ago, Schimoler replaced the 85-year-old pipes in his Lorain Avenue restaurant in historic Ohio City and installed a reverse-osmosis Kinetico water system to filter the Cleveland water.Now many, it seems, have noticed the difference made by Crop’s water. Servers fill their personal water bottles from the filtered water pipes, customers comment about the clarity and freshness of drinking water on their tables and Crop’s dishes have acquired better flavor.

Kinetico is a 44-year-old water treatment company with processes that don’t rely on electricity to work. Headquartered in Geauga County, its success has resulted in expansion to many countries, including Europe and China.

“Water is our most basic yet valuable ingredient,” Schimoler said. “The minute I started to look at water when I was reducing or simmering sauces or soups, it became apparent that when water contained impurities I was concentrating them by double or more.”

Schimoler is both a food scientist and a chef, incorporating the research and development arm of his business at Crop, a name developed from an acronym for Custom Restaurant Operations Platform. He came to Cleveland in 2005 to work for Nestle North America as its director of innovation and development. But he fell in love with the area and wanted to return to having his own business.His first Crop restaurant here was just off Public Square, but now he’s in an old bank building caddy-corner from the West Side Market.

He does his research and development from a state-of-the-art test kitchen in the basement of Crop.“We initially set Steve up with different water chemistries that he could use for testing purposes,” explained Chris Robinson, marketing director at Kinetico.

Now the reverse-osmosis system has become basic to everything he does with food and beverages.Reverse osmosis employs three phases of filtration and uses the force of water, not electricity, to work, he explained. Tap water first passes through a semi-permeable membrane to filter out inorganic contaminants. Pre-filtration eliminates chlorine and larger particles, while post-filtration eliminates tastes or smells remaining.

“I grew up in New York, and for years I heard that New York pizza and New York bagels tasted the way they did because of New York’s water,” he said.

So he decided to find out for himself.

“We were able to get the analytic composite of New York tap water and compare it to Cleveland tap water, then filter our water using reverse osmosis to make pure H2O,” he explained. “Then we added back the minerality, softness, acidity and PH to effectively create New York City tap water. “It worked! We made New York pizza in Cleveland.”

When he does testing for product development, he must eliminate any variables, so having pure water is an essential, he said. He’s done product development for large restaurant chains and beverage companies, all of which strive for consistent results and product every time, no matter where it is served or purchased. Nondisclosure agreements mean he can’t name them, but many are brands familiar to everyone.

Schimoler conceded, however, that taste is subjective and those who are accustomed to Cleveland tap water might prefer it. “For instance, southern Florida water has a sulfur note and is heavily chlorinated,” he said. “I can smell the tap water the minute it’s poured when I sit down at a table, and I think it’s awful. But some Floridians like it.” He says that as a chef he goes out of his way to source only the best and freshest ingredients, including seasonal produce, for his restaurant.

“So why wouldn’t I want pure water? It seems so simple and basic now that I’ve experienced the difference.” Crop pipes in four different waters, and they’re used for different things. For example, soft water runs through the dishwasher, the water heater and other appliances, he said. “It makes them last longer because it’s kinder to the mechanical elements. We also use significantly less detergent with the softened water.

“The reverse-osmosis water has become a critical ingredient in Crop’s beverage program, which includes Culinary Cocktails with ice cubes made from barrel-aged reverse-osmosis water. “After completing the cycle for aging the spirits, we add RO water to the barrel and age the water for up to a week,” Schimoler said. “We use the favored water to make a large-format ice cube specifically for a corresponding cocktail. The RO water picks up the residual flavors of the charred oak casks, as well as a hint of the spirit that previously inhabited the cask.”

Schimoler said his sorbets and flavored ices, which range from frozen mango and basil ice to watermelon and ginger sorbet, are incredibly flavorful made with RO water because they’re often half water. He said the water provides a blank canvas against which flavors shine.

Schimoler also has installed a household reverse-osmosis system in his home and said the coffee he makes in the morning there is the equal of that he serves at the restaurant.

Robinson said that home water-softening systems have been the backbone of its business but that reverse-osmosis filtration is also making huge inroads, as an aging water system infrastructure and foul-tasting well water become larger realities. These issues haven’t escaped the notice of food professionals such as Schimoler.

“We’ve met with many chefs in Northeast Ohio,” Robinson said. Schimoler said he met with California chefs on a recent visit to Napa and Sonoma wine country. “Water shortages are a big concern out west, but I was seeing chefs there consciously giving up the sale of Evian and other bottled waters and beginning to embrace RO filtration systems,” he said.

California chefs, he noted, are typically considered to be on the cutting edge of cuisine trends.“It’s good to know that now here in Cleveland we’re ahead of the curve,” he said.